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The Body of the Condottiero. a Link Between Physical Pain and Military Virtue As It Was Interpreted in Renaissance Italy

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The Body of the Condottiero. a Link Between Physical Pain and Military Virtue As It Was Interpreted in Renaissance Italy The Body of the Condottiero. A Link Between Physical Pain and Military Virtue as it was Interpreted in Renaissance Italy GIULIA MOROSINI Within the context of this conference about the body in the Middle Ages, I would like to analyse the symbolic function of the body, and in particular wounds and mutilations, had for the Italian military class in the Renaissance. Therefore, I asked myself the following questions: did wounds and scars have a specific meaning in the military mentality of the Renaissance? If the answer is yes, with what connotation? Did they rely on a moral system which identified the positive and negative characteristics of the military action? In the space of this article I shall attempt to answer to these questions, well aware of the fact that this subject needs, due to its extent, a wider documentary spectrum. This article aims only to be a preliminary and exploratory work, with the intent to offer some starting points for a consequent reflection. Within the tight space allowed, it is not possible to deeply investigate the mass of more and less famous condottieri who populated Italy during the XV century. Therefore, I preferred to focus my attention on four characters, who cover a time frame from the beginning of the XV century until the first years of the XVI century, namely Braccio da Montone, Sigismondo Malatesta, 161 The body of the Condottiero Federico di Montefeltro and Giovanni de’ Medici.1 Although they differ extremely with respect to temperament and personal and political history, these characters represented the excellence of the contemporary military class of Italian condottieri. For each of these captains I refer in particular to the commentarii of their lives, to personal letters, to Renaissance literature and to coeval chronicles.2 If the subject is considered from a factual angle, the document’s selection, and the exclusion of political and government sources, may seems a little incomplete to meticulously retrace events, battles and military strategies. The selected sources, instead, can be enlightening if they are considered not for the accurate narration of the events, but for the stylistic elements which were used to consecrate the condottiero to posterity. Through the identification of recurrent themes within the condottieri’s eulogies it is possible to reconstruct the cornerstones around which were developed the fundamental ideas of the Renaissance military mentality. In other words, it is possible to identify some exemplary virtues and behaviours ascribable to the perfect condottiero or to the perfect soldier, and the symbols that embodied these virtues. Then, the spectrum of investigation may be expanded by the comparison between these sources and the military and moral treatises of the Renaissance; thus, the extent at which the measure of the idealization of the behaviours present in the treatises has permeated the everyday life of the soldier can be observed. For Braccio da Montone, I refer to the chronicle of his life written by Giovanni Antonio Campano around 1458, and the following vulgarisation made by Pompeo Pellini at the end of XVI century. Campano dedicated his work to Braccio’s son, Carlo Fortebracci, and collected the information about Braccio’s life and deeds through the testimonies of Braccio’s veterans, the bracceschi. Campano’s chronicle shows an effort of symbolic sublimation of the main character, which 1 On Braccio see: Braccio da Montone e i Fortebracci. Le compagnie di ventura nell’Italia del XV secolo, Narni, 1993; On Sigismondo see: TABANELLI, 1977; FALCIONI, 2006; ZAMA, 1965, pp. 131-193; FRANCESCHINI, 1973, pp. 311-388; YRIARTE, 1882. On Federico see: FRANCESCHINI, 1961 and 1970, pp. 431-544; TOMMASOLI, 1978; DE LA SIZERANNE, 1972. On Giovanni see: CARDINI, 2001a, pp. 148-179; SCALINI, 2001b, pp. 180-201. 2 About the humanistic historiography see: DI STEFANO, 1992. About the genre of commentarii see: IANZITI, 1992, pp. 1029-1063. 162 Giulia Morosini becomes the representative of the virtue par excellence, the military virtue, “a new virtue which can be identified with the military art. From here, the encounter between this biography and the genre of the de arte militari treatises can be noticed through an accurate reading.”3 The most interesting chronicle about Sigismondo is the one written by Gaspare Broglio Tartaglia da Lavello; son of the famous condottiero Tartaglia da Lavello and educated to the profession of arms, Gaspare served Sigismondo as ambassador, captain and political advisor since 1443 until the death of Sigismondo (1468), and was eyewitness of most of the narrated event.4 For Federico di Montefeltro the more detailed biography is the one composed by Pierantonio Paltroni after 1470. Instructed to write the captain’s biography, Paltroni has followed Federico in every military campaign since 1439; he was therefore present at the narrated events and recounts them with a not overstated partisan spirit.5 In the end, about Giovanni de’ Medici the most interesting source are the letters written by Pietro Aretino,6 who followed Giovanni since 1525 and was a witness of his last days. Furthermore, the biographies written in the XVI century by Giovan Battista Tedaldi (1495-1575) have to be taken into account, who personally served Giovanni, and by Gian Girolamo Rossi (1505-1564), bishop of Pavia.7 These biographies and chronicles must be amended by various quotations taken from contemporary authors and chronicles. In conclusion, in the space of this article it is not possible to analyse, not even with a summary, the army’s structure or the Renaissance Italian warfare, for which I refer to the studies in the footnote.8 3 TATEO, 1990, p. 114. On this subject see also: FINZI, 1993, pp. 37-59, and the introduction by Valentini in CAMPANO, 1929. 4 The Cronaca Malatestiana is extracted from the unpublished Cronica Universale. See the item BROGLIO, Gaspare, in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Treccani. 5 About the life of Paltroni see the introduction to the publication of his commentarii written by Walter Tommasoli: PALTRONI, 1966, pp. 9-28. 6 About Pietro Aretino see: LARIVAILLE, 1980. 7 TEDALDI, 1833, pp. 11-18; ROSSI, 1833. 8 DEL TREPPO, 1973, pp. 253-275 and 2001, pp. 417-452; PIERI, 1952 and 1966, pp. 99-119; ANCONA, 1973, pp. 643-665; STORTI, 1997, pp. 257-271; MALLETT, 1974, 1988, pp. 257-271, and 2007; DEL NEGRO, 2001; CONTAMINE, 1986; WALEY, 1993, pp. 111-128; CARDINI, 2001b, pp. 8-41; ARFAIOLI, 2005, pp. 1-27. 163 The body of the Condottiero The virtue of Fortitudo Necessarily, the analysis of the soldier’s body and its risks is interlaced with the XIV and XV century moral and military literature, and therefore with the moral virtues that are submitted to the ideal military action. Contamine, in his La guerre au Moyen Âge, has sketched a preliminary history of the courage, analysing its description in some treatises and identifying the concept of courage with the virtue of fortitude.9. Fortitudo is one of the four cardinal virtues, according to the system invented by Plato, in which the fortitude, often combined with the courage, is the one that grants resoluteness and tenacity in difficulties. Tommaso d’Aquino pinpointed fortitude as the strength in the line of duty that is the virtue which makes the man intrepid in front of any danger. In the laical context, fortitude is the typical characteristic of the strong man who does not hesitate in front of enemies or obstacles, and is therefore often associated to the military world. In the military context, fortitudo have to deal, at the same time, with the fear of death and with bravery and for this reason, both boldness and military skills derive from fortitude. 10 A suitable example is offered by the Tractatus de bello, de represaliis et de duello written around 1360 by Giovanni da Legnano, an Italian jurist and canon lawyer at the University of Bologna, who was read and printed during the XV century. The professor asserts that war is composed of three elements: brawn, fortitude and weapons. For the author, fortitudo is the most important, since it gives the strength both to assault and to wait the enemies’ assault and, therefore, it’s a virtue sided between courage and fear.11 Military and moral literature played a central role in the definition of the war’s virtues and the composition of the perfect soldier’s code of conduct. “Many of the legal and military treatises which constituted the framework of a sort of international code of arms in the fifteenth century were Italian. Giovanni da Legnano, Egidio Colonna, and Bartolomeo da Saliceto were amongst the most influential writers and codifiers in the 9 CONTAMINE, 1986, pp. 339-351. 10 Fortitudo consists of seven different components: magnanimity, trust, self- confidence, munificence, tenacity, tolerance (also called patience or resoluteness) and perseverance. 11 See: ERMINI, 1923; DA LEGNANO, Giovanni in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, Treccani. 164 Giulia Morosini fourteenth century”, even though the XV century produced more practical than theoretical treatises. In the everyday life of the army probably were active conventions formed as “a combination of standard legal codes and long-standing military and chivalric custom”,12 which relied largely on the captains’ model and the competition between soldiers.13 In summary, the virtue of fortitudo was rooted within the military culture of the Italian Renaissance, and represented both the courage to resist to the fear and to not give in to the enemy’s provocations, and both the courage to rush into the battle without fearing pain, wounds and death. It symbolised the virtue of the soldier who is able to attack but also to wait and to endure deprivations and suffering, without falling prey to the instinct but applying an essentially human rationality.
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